Abgoosht

This soup in one of my favorite feel good recipes warm a cold autumn/winter day.  It looks complicated by really it is just putting a bunch of stuff into a slow cooker and letting it go all day, oh so easy.  Many times Abgoosht is referred to as Dizi, but this has to do with the dish it is cooked in- it is a large stone pot reminiscent of Le Crueset pots but really made of real stone. For many of us we use pots, slow cookers, or even pressure cookers for convenience and the amount of time we have. The traditional recipe for Abgoosht is what I am sharing with you here.




Ingredients:



· Lamb meat ba ostokhan (with bones), or other meat as long as it has bones.

· 3-4 potatoes (depending on size of potatoes)

· 1 medium onion

· Salt/Pepper

· Turmeric
1 cup
· Nokhod (garbanzo beans)
 (soaked in adavance)
· 1 cup lobiya sefid (white beans)
( soaked in advance)
· 1-2 Limoo Amani (dried limes) or use lemon juice if don’t have this.

· 1 Tablespoon tomato paste
· 
Lemon Juice (optional)
· 
Cinnamon


Directions:


These directions are specific to slow cooker but may be modified for a pressure cooker or a regular pot.

1. Place the meat, onion, , and dried lime(s) in the slow cooker. Pour in water to cover everything, you may just want to pour in the water used to soak the beans and maybe some more if its not enough.
2. Cover the pot and place it on med. for 2-3 hours.
3. Add white beans, garbanzo beans and cook for another 2 hours
4. Then add the washed potatoes (do not peel the skin off yet), tomato paste, and a little bit of cinnamon. At this time if you feel it is necessary you can add some lemon juice.
 Cover the slow cooker again and allow everything to cook for another 2 hours on med. heat.
5. This is a long cooking time but you want the meat to practically disintegrate on you and the flavors to mix together.

•  you can serve this as a stew or separate it out and serve as below
• Preparing the Mashed meat (goosht koobideh):
You will peel the skin off the potatoes, clean the meat off the bones, and take out the dried limes. Mash the meat, potatoes (maybe not all the potatoes), and beans all together. Then you can pour some of the water on it is you desire. It is ready to eat with bread.
• Preparing the tilit (water/bread):
You will want to tear up pieces of pita or barbari bread (or a combination) and pour the water over the bread. The bread pieces become soaked and this part of Abgoosht is called Tilit.